


Regret

by Kokiri85



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Kidnap Dads, Kinslayers, eveyone is sorry and no one is right, feanorians - Freeform - Freeform, kidnap family, returning to aman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kokiri85/pseuds/Kokiri85
Summary: In some future where Maglor and Elrond have both gone to Aman, Elwing and Maglor have a chat.Because I can never bring myself to like Elwing when she’s written as a perfectly innocent victim, but villainizing her feels deeply dishonest. So here's my attempt to sympathize with her by giving her the quality I find most sympathetic.
Relationships: Elwing & Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	Regret

Elwing reaches into a small bag, and though Maglor had expected it he still flinches in surprise when the holy light of the silmaril emerges. She holds it up, offering. Threatening.

“This was what you wanted, isn’t it?” she asks coldly. “If I had given this to you, long ago in Beleriand when you first wrote to us asking for it, then you would not have attacked us and my family would have remained whole.”

“Yes,” Maglor manages, averting his eyes.

“And even after you attacked, when you took my sons for hostages, you would have traded them back to me in return for this.”

“Yes.”

She thrusts it out at him. “If I give it to you now, would you return them to me still?”

Maglor leans back, eyes clenched shut, away from the burning light of his father’s greatest work. “I’m sorry; that is no longer in my power. Your son Elros has chosen his own fate and passed to where neither of us may reach him.”

“And Elrond?” she presses. “He is here, well within reach, but his heart is yours. Would you give it back to me, if I gave you this rock?”

He shakes his head helplessly. “His heart is not mine to give. He is grown, and chooses for himself how he shares it.”

She draws a breath, lets it go, then moves to sit beside him. “I know. It is too late now for either of us to take back our choices."

They sit together in silence for a time, listening to the wind and to birdsong, and wait anxiously for the conversation to continue. Finally, Elwing takes the first step. “I have met my son, since he came west. He did not know me.”

“Did you tell him who you were?”

“After a few pleasantries, when it became apparent that he did not already know. He was glad to meet me when I was a stranger, but for his mother he had nothing but polite distance. There was no joy in our reunion.”

Maglor can only say again, “I’m sorry.”

She looks at the sky for a moment, then says quietly, “it is not your fault. Many things are your fault, but not this. I abandoned him and his brother, by my own free will, and that will always lie between us now.” There are tears on her face. Maglor is afraid to speak. “I did not mean to. I did not think I might find myself trapped on the other side of an ocean, forbidden to return. I did not think at all. I was very young, and so very afraid. I remembered the attack at Doriath as a child, the fire and the blood, and I felt helpless and frightened as a child again. All I could think of was to flee, even to my death.

“But in my fear and my haste I left my children behind, at the mercy of kinslayers I believed to be no better than orcs. For the millennia that followed it has been both my greatest comfort, and my greatest shame, to know that they were indeed given mercy.”

“It was not just mercy,” Maglor says, hoping it brings her more comfort than shame. “We came to love them dearly, my brother and I, and those of our followers who remained with us. It was not the family or the childhood they should have had, but they were loved and cherished, and as safe as we could keep them as Beleriand crumbled. I know it is not enough to make amends for everything else—”

“It is not,” Elwing agrees sharply. “But neither can I make amends to my sons for my own sins.” She slants a look at him, unreadable. “And so we have something in common. I suppose that is why I came to speak with you.”

“Our sins are hardly comparable,” Maglor protests.

“Indeed not; I am no kinslayer, even once over, let alone *three.*” She shakes her head. “But what good is it--what *use*--to have a lesser debt than someone else, when it is still beyond what I can ever repay? After all these years I find myself weary of keeping score.” She looks down at the silmaril, held loosely in one hand. Though it does not burn her, Maglor thinks she might nevertheless wish to throw it into the ocean.

He dares to take her empty hand in his own and offers her the only other comfort he can give, though it will likely cause her shame as well. “Elrond will forgive you. It may take time, but he is not inclined to grudges. If he could forgive my brother and I and grow to love us, then surely he will find room in his heart for his own mother.”

She smiles faintly though her tears and returns his grip. “I was mistaken. *That* is why I came to speak with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> So look, I'm not a writer, okay? So not my thing.
> 
> Also, I know this fic focuses almost entirely on Elwing's guilt and not Maglor's, and I hope it's clear that this isn't because she's *more* guilty. If anything it's the other way around--they're prioritizing her guilt because he feels indebted by greater guilt, and because she's not really at a point where she has forgiven him enough to care about his feelings.


End file.
